Anna Karenina eBook

Absorbed in such dreams, carefully keeping his horse
by the hedges, so as not to trample his young crops,
he rode up to the laborers who had been sent to sow
clover. A cart with the seed in it was standing,
not at the edge, but in the middle of the crop, and
the winter corn had been torn up by the wheels and
trampled by the horse. Both the laborers were
sitting in the hedge, probably smoking a pipe together.
The earth in the cart, with which the seed was mixed,
was not crushed to powder, but crusted together or
adhering in clods. Seeing the master, the laborer,
Vassily, went towards the cart, while Mishka set to
work sowing. This was not as it should be, but
with the laborers Levin seldom lost his temper.
When Vassily came up, Levin told him to lead the
horse to the hedge.

“It’s all right, sir, it’ll spring
up again,” responded Vassily.

“Please don’t argue,” said Levin,
“but do as you’re told.”

“Yes, sir,” answered Vassily, and he took
the horse’s head. “What a sowing,
Konstantin Dmitrievitch,” he said, hesitating;
“first rate. Only it’s a work to
get about! You drag a ton of earth on your shoes.”

“Why is it you have earth that’s not sifted?”
said Levin.

“Well, we crumble it up,” answered Vassily,
taking up some seed and rolling the earth in his palms.

Vassily was not to blame for their having filled up
his cart with unsifted earth, but still it was annoying.

Levin had more than once already tried a way he knew
for stifling his anger, and turning all that seemed
dark right again, and he tried that way now.
He watched how Mishka strode along, swinging the
huge clods of earth that clung to each foot; and getting
off his horse, he took the sieve from Vassily and
started sowing himself.

“Where did you stop?”

Vassily pointed to the mark with his foot, and Levin
went forward as best he could, scattering the seed
on the land. Walking was as difficult as on
a bog, and by the time Levin had ended the row he
was in a great heat, and he stopped and gave up the
sieve to Vassily.

“Well, master, when summer’s here, mind
you don’t scold me for these rows,” said
Vassily.

“Eh?” said Levin cheerily, already feeling
the effect of his method.

“Why, you’ll see in the summer time.
It’ll look different. Look you where
I sowed last spring. How I did work at it!
I do my best, Konstantin Dmitrievitch, d’ye
see, as I would for my own father. I don’t
like bad work myself, nor would I let another man
do it. What’s good for the master’s
good for us too. To look out yonder now,”
said Vassily, pointing, “it does one’s
heart good.”

“It’s a lovely spring, Vassily.”

“Why, it’s a spring such as the old men
don’t remember the like of. I was up home;
an old man up there has sown wheat too, about an acre
of it. He was saying you wouldn’t know
it from rye.”